Written by

Ed Brackett

USA Today

Macy’s will open at least some stores for the first time ever on Thanksgiving, according to a report from a Chicago newspaper.

The Chicago Sun-Times’Sunday report cites five employees at a Macy’s downtown as saying the store will open at 8 p.m. Thanksgiving night and remain open for 24 hours.

Two other Chicagoland stores will also open at 8 p.m. that day, the paper said, identifying employees there as the source. Of the workers who talked, “most asked not to be named,” the paper says.

According to the paper, a Thanksgiving open would be a first for the company founded by Rowland H. Macy in New York City in 1858.

In past years, Macy’s has opened at midnight. But its supposed earlier opening this year follows a trend other retailers have already adopted as they compete against both each other and online shops to offer customers the best holiday deals.

Toys R Us led the “holiday creep” when it decided to open at 9 p.m. Thanksgiving night two years ago. Last year, it pushed its opening to 8 p.m. Retailers including Target, Wal-Mart, Sears, and Kmart also all opened Thanksgiving night at either 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. last year, and stayed open through Black Friday.

Retailers have said the earlier Thanksgiving hours appeal to customers’ desire to shop following family gatherings. But the move has not gone over well with employees, who often have to sacrifice their own family time to be at work.

For the past two years, employees at retailers including Target, Toys R Us, and Wal-Mart have started petitions against those stores’ holiday hours, often gathering hundreds of thousands of signatures. But the petitions were never successful.